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The Joe Dante project is part of a new package of films aimed at promoting Italy

The Rome Film Festival's New Cinema Network co-production market has announced a special section, dubbed "Great Beauties," focusing on films that promote Italy as an ideal production partner for global films.

One of its eight projects this year is Joe Dante's Ombra Amore. The Gremlins director, who premiered his latest film, Burying the Ex, in Venice this year, has chosen underground Rome as the setting for the vampire-werewolf love story that puts a classical Romeo and Juliet tale into today's financial-crisis-ridden Italy.

Pete is a werewolf whose pack is a crew of hotheaded financial traders responsible for Italy's current economic crisis. Maggie is a vampire whose family is a formerly wealthy aristocratic clan brought to bankruptcy by the greedy werewolves. Surrounded by other-worldly troubles, it remains to be seen whether or not their love can survive among the warring families.

"Rome. The Eternal City of Gods and Monsters, where a she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus," said Dante in a statement. "And what could be more eternal than un-death?" Ombra Amore is budgeted at around $14.6 million. Dante promises "a compelling new take on a classic genre."

The New Cinema Market has lined up a selection of global talent this year to highlight Italy. Other "Great Beauties" projects include Bruno Barreto'sDuetto, Yim Ho's Nessun Dorma, Marco and Antonio Manetti's The Bizarre Journey of the Soul Traveler, Paolo Benvenuti'sCaravaggio's Secret, BadyMinck's1313 — Dante's Emperor, Ahmed Maher's In Which Land You Die and Sheng Zhimin'sIl fu Mattia Pascal.